Intelligent Design

I would like to have a debate on whether or not you believe we are or aren't inelligent design.

I didn't post this in religion because I want logical explanations for why you believe what you write. If you write something for or against intelligent design, logically explain your answer and why you are for or against.

Aren't you begging the question though? (By which I mean you're starting from the assumption that ID must be true.) I would rather start from the position of "these are the facts; what is the best explanation for them?" All the vestigial organs/behaviours in the link I provided can far better be explained by evolution than ID. For example, why on earth would your "designer" design a fish that lives in total darkness, yet has the remnant of an eye? You can't blame that on error.

Do we know that for certain? Perhaps those dolphins know a thing or two that we aren't aware of...

Aren't you assuming that I am begging the question? I have previously argued for and against ID. I don't assume it's true, I also don't assume it's not true. You are asking me to answer about a fish with a pointless eye when you don't have the answer to the question. This is like me asking you about the dolphins capabilities. I agree that there are many things we are unaware of. Do dolphins put humans in captivity or do the humans put the dolphins in captivity? It seems if they were smarter than humans, they could escape or prevent captivity.

Don't knock the appendix. Latest scientific research shows that it does actually serve a purpose. Just because we're unaware of a part's purpose or deem its purpose of little to no consequence does not mean it's a "redundant bit."

I think you are courting opinions about biology, a professionalized, rigorous, and longstanding field, from everyday joes (like me) with this question. Never a good idea (look at the global warming "debate",,, suddenly everyone's a climatologist... (as if)).

As to intelligent design in a broader sens of the meaning, ie., how could we and the world exist without a guiding hand, given the enormous marvel that we are, I'd say that it is sufficient that we are a marvel... why do we need to care how it came to be the case...

Then again, maybe we aren't such a marvel. This whole Haiti thing is fine and dandy, but the people down there have been living a life of hell-on-earth for decades, and noone gave a damn about them... so maybe we ain't so marvellous

i have said this before, if we were intelligently designed, we would at the least not have to do inconvenient things like use the bathroom or have poor eyesight or get sick, and at the most, we would have super powers

There is no credible evidence for intelligent design. The whole debate is a non starter.

Only Christians who have decided to take Genesis literally (thus missing the whole point of one of the finest pieces of writing in all of the world's literature)want to believe in intelligent design. Wanting something does not make it so.

This is the whole stumbling block for ID. In the true scientific sense, there simply isn't any evidence for it. You can't test ID (i.e. you can't make predictions based on it and then do real-world observations/testing to see if those predictions come true). Ergo, ID is a non-issue. It certainly doesn't belong in school science classes, anyway. Because. It's. Not. Science.

Philosophy is a science. I think it should be left open to debate even though nothing scientific has been accepted. Nothing has also been accepted that proves against intelligent design, the evidence only shows that it is currently unproven. I will agree that religion is not science unless you consider the science of religion to gain followers.

But nothing has been accepted that disproves we were vomited by a stargoat after a particularly ferocious night on the town. Once you have dis-proven that - then we can discuss the 100% total lack of evidence for ID. And you can then debunk the proven fact that evolution happens.

Mark, Define what a stargoat is. And how do you know there was only one? What do you consider the most important evidence against ID? Where did I say that evolution doesn't happen, I said the opposite. This doesn't mean there wasn't intervention.

I think our minds are pretty credible evidence. How does evolution explain the complexities and capabilities of our minds compared with other animal life? That we are ahead in evolution? That isn't an explanation. Why do we seek more and more stimulation from entertainment and belief to be happy? What other animals do you see going to church and seeking beliefs to believe? Animals seem to be content and happy in nature, I don't think we are content or ever will be.

lol That made me laugh, I will give you that. Where did I say we "must" have been ID? You are adding words that I didn't write. You saying we are screwed up is opinion based. You could think we are perfect or you could think we are screwed up.

But now I see you were just putting out some gibberish. I am sure that even you understand the onus is on proving things rather than disproving all the billions of negatives.

If some one had some evidence of a designer - they would have come forward with it. What you have is small minority of vocal religionists using the argument that "It is so complex it MUST have been designed."

I am making an argument in favor or against, whichever makes more sense. Neither religion or science makes sense to me. I will say that science does a better job using evidence to explain it's claims and theories. I agree that saying it can't be proven wrong proves it true, this doesn't mean it shouldn't be thought about and debated. A lot of science bases evidence on what they can rule out, not everything they can rule in. To my knowledge, ID hasn't been ruled out by science. Do you rule it out because you can't rule it in?

No. I rule it out because there is no evidence in favor and I am aware of the reasons behind the suggestion - religious garbage. Not logical, not scientific - nothing but "there must be a god, therefore we were designed." Utter nonsense.

What are my reasons behind the suggestion? Do I want to suggest starting my own religion when I disagree with religion? Why do you make assumptions on me when assumptions aren't scientific. Your assumptions on me are the same as you say I assume there is ID. What evidence do you base your assumpions on? I don't relate the possibility of ID with god or a religious term, sorry to disappoint you. Just looking for a thoughtful conversation of the facts for or against.

There is science to finding a person innocent of a crime. If the person has an alibi or evidence they were not present when the crime was committed, it can be ruled out they are guilty of the crime.

Don't you have to prove your facts for the star goat first before asking me to argue against it? Why does the possibility of ID or intervention offend you so much? Do you believe you are equal to an ant? I will argue for ID or intervention and say that we are separated from other animals by mind.

A random mutation, several million years ago, produced an early hominid that was slightly more intelligent than his fellow tribe members. Because he was more intelligent, he was better at hunting and toolmaking, so he survived longer and had more descendants, who were also more intelligent. Thus intelligence became favoured and led to the evolution of more intelligent hominid species and ultimately of Homo sapiens (us).

Evolution is random to start with, but the processes that result from the randomness go in a specific direction and hence aren't random.

Perhaps the desire to believe in religion is a result of the fact that we have more free time (due to our ability to use tools) and live longer than other species, so we develop things like religion to fill up that time.

As for animals seeming content and happy in nature, we just don't know that for sure. They have stability, but that's not necessarily the same as happiness.

Empress, how does this explain our transer of information from generation to generation when other animals can't do this to our abilities? A random relative mutation? Sounds contradictory to me. Why don't turtles develop religion when they can live over 150 years? Shouldn't turtles be more advanced because they outlive humans? I agree, it can't be proven that animals are content in nature, but I haven't seen any starting political wars.

Turtles can't make tools. (And I suspect they're not as intelligent as us.) The tool thing has been a key factor in human evolution. As has the ability to speak (probably due to another random mutation).

I don't mean disrespect to you, but these "random mutations" without explanations and evidence look the same to me as religion using faith to believe it. I will agree to the possibility of random mutations, but what caused these random mutations and why are the only ones that exceeded other lifes capabilities?

In order to "see" the evidence in real time, you need to do an experiment on something with a very short life cycle - like fruit flies, or bacteria. Some scientists have done just that:

"A single clone of E. coli was cultured at 37 [deg] C for 2000 generations. A single clone was then extracted from this population and divided into replicates that were then cultured at either 32 C , 37 C, or 42 C for a total of another 2000 generations. Adaptation of the new lines was periodically measured by competing these selection lines against the ancestor population. By the end of the experiment, the lines cultured at 32 C were shown to be 10% fitter that the ancestor population (at 32 C), and the line cultured at 42 C was shown to be 20% more fit than the ancestor population. The replicate line that was cultured at 37 C showed little improvement over the ancestral line." http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

Basically what they're saying is that if you take a bacterium like E. coli and put it in a different temperature to its comfort zone of 37 deg C, then over hundreds of generations it will become "used" to the new temperature and will actually be less able to cope with the comfort zone temperature than bacteria that never left it. If you accept that genetics is how information is passed down from one generation to another, then it must be a genetic mechanism that's occurring here. And since the human experimenters haven't done anything to the genes themselves in the first place, then there must have been a random mutation thingy going on to jump start the change. And by doing a controlled experiment in a laboratory, over a time period of weeks rather than millions of years, you've also eliminated ID as the explanation for the changes that occurred in the bacterias' preferences.

half the people on the earth are idiots, so I how could that be intelligent design...someone pissed me off 2day so I'm just jumping in ruining conversations 4 fun...How about half were born apes and evolved and half were born through intelligent design.. sounds good i'll leave it that...i have no case for or against obviously so i'll mozy on out intelligently acting like an ape,...lion, tiger, bear OH my!

Simply attacking evolution from ignorance in no argument in favor of ID. If you wish to have a mature conversation, why attack proven scientific facts as an argument in favor of an irrational belief? This is what religious people do.

By the most common estimate, since the dawn of life on Earth, 99.9% of all species have gone extinct.The common ancestor did not have the survival skills that apes and humans do. Survival of a species is the exception, not the norm.

We have the self awareness to recognize it while we are doing it and to correct mistakes while learning from them. I agree that we don't always learn from them. Unlike ants, we have abilities to explore other planets. What other animal has capability to do this?

Well - no- not according to you. All I have to do is suggest the idea and you have to disprove it.

Why does the idea of the star goat offend you so much? Do you have something against goats?

Please define your designer and present your facts in favor of ID.

I am wondering of you actually know what the term means judging by "we are separated from other animals by mind"

You like to post your little sarcastic smilies don't you? Can you have a mature conversation or do you get a too stimulated when you feel you have made a point? Why do you assume I don't like goats? I just said you didn't have any evidence for it. What do you mean do I know what it means? What do you think it does or doesn't mean? I think humans surpass other animal lifes capabilities by the brain and mind.

Why would I try to state an absolute definition for a philosophical term or idea? Are you setting me up for failure? I'm not mad at the goat, you and your goat god are alright with me. As long as you don't try to kill me because the goat told you to. Don't listen to the goat. I don't think the goat is logical. Have you seen goats have superior capabilities to humans? Haven't you seen the movie about how to explode goats? lol. Does goats explode humans? I'm jk, I don't know if that's true. I think nature seems to operate in a perfect balance. I think we are the only animal life with the capabilities to screw up that balance. It seems far fetched that our capabilities to do this are simply described with little to no evidence as a random mutation.

I think it could be intelligent design in the fact that humans separate from nature. This doesn't mean it was intelligent to design humans with abilities to separate from the rest of nature. Just the possibility that it could be intelligent for the ability to separate.

Surely the whole notion of "intelligent design" is supposed to imply a being who if not omnipotent, is at least powerful enough to design the whole of plant or animal life on a planet. Which means one of two candidates for the designer: (a) a god or gods, or (b) a race of highly intelligent aliens.

My money is on (a) as being the inspiration driving most ID advocates. So to say that religion doesn't have anything to do with ID as a belief system isn't going to wash. Sorry.

Empress, more assumptions from you. When you say "imply", you are saying you assume. Are you religious? Either of those you listed could be possible, I don't think the religious idea is logical though and neither is scientific explanations. How is it a belief system?

"In all cases there is a hidden (actually they scarcely even bother to hide it) "default" assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it. Note how unbalanced this is, and how it gives the lie to the apparent reasonableness of "let's teach both sides". One side is required to produce evidence, every step of the way. The other side is never required to produce one iota of evidence, but is deemed to have won automatically, the moment the first side encounters a difficulty - the sort of difficulty that all sciences encounter every day, and go to work to solve, with relish."

I will give you credit, that is a link with very good points in it. Is this your bible that teaches you to assume I am religious simply for mentioning ID? Match all of the examples I listed that supported ID could be possible with the link you posted. I will say I don't think either should be taught as absolute that man evolved from "homoniod" or that "ID" is absolute. I think the problem is that both sides want their belief taught as absolute when it doesn't have evidence to prove absolute.

If you actually do believe in ID, then chances are that you're religious LOL. But if you're just playing Devil's advocate, then of course I can't assume anything about your beliefs or the lack thereof.

?

The worth of any scientific theory lies in its ability to predict things correctly. Evolution has proved its worth in this respect, although scientists themselves realise that there are still gaps/unexplained phenomena. If another theory comes along that explains the facts better than evolution then it will replace evolution (provided it has that all-important predictive capability).

ID can't predict, it just proclaims. And yet its supporters perform mental contortions trying to get us to accept it as "science".

Can you show me even one new piece of evidence to support intelligent design?You are trying to counter scientific proofs with philosophical beliefs. If you are arguing in defense of ID, you are fighting math with imagination.

"Intelligent design" is a product of religious evolution - meaning, people can see the creation story is wrong, but they just can't let go of the idea that some magic force snapped it's fingers and viola.

A supernova near enough to our planet in the last couple billion years could easily cause genetic mutations. Some scientists point to this as a more significant source of mutation over the course of the planet's history than faulty gene replication.

I think before you can prove or disprove anything you have to be able to define the differences between patterns and design. Patterns form naturally through chaos and fractals. For example, snowflakes, tornadoes, and ocean waves are naturally forming patterns and require no "designer."

Codes do require a designer such as music, language, and computer programs but the biggest question is if DNA is a code which requires a designer or is it a naturally forming pattern.

DNA by most definitions is a code that stores information and has the ability to replicate itself. Deciphering this code is what the Human Genome Project is all about. From what I remember, every molecule of human DNA has 3 billion letters representing the 4 chemicals that make up the DNA and are replicated exactly in the same sequence. When the sequence is disrupted the result is mutations.

I accept that DNA is a code and a code must be created by design. This gives me a few possible conclusions unless codes can be proven to occur randomly or spontaneously:

1. Aliens designed DNA2. There is a yet undiscovered law of physics that creates information such as DNA3. DNA was designed by a Superintelligence, God

Not sure what was disingenuous of my post. I accept DNA is a code as does everyone in those links you provided. They all state DNA is a code they only differ on whether or not a code must have a designer. DNA is a code but the question is was it by design.

Other than DNA can you show ANY code in nature that is a random or spontaneous occurrence? Or explain why DNA is not a code.

They all state that DNA is "sort of" a code. They also point out why it does not need a designer. Is is disingenuous because the strict definition of a code requires it to have been designed by some one. "Code" in the sense that DNA is a code is not the same. And I quote:

DNA is not that kind of a code. DNA is a a polymer, which is composed of individual chemical units called nucleotides. There are four types of these nucleotides, and we humans have decided to call them adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. These names are not entirely arbitrary, but in the end, there’s nothing magical about them. We could call them Blob, Clob, Dob, and Emu, and they’d still be the same. Our language — the code we humans use to communicate — is just a way for us to give each other information and keep things separate in our own minds.

The nucleotides in DNA are often said to be the “blueprints” or “code” which define a sequence of messenger RNA which in turn defines at least one protein. In a sense, these proteins are the building blocks of life, and DNA is the “code” which determines the qualities of the life that will be built.

The problem with the theist argument, however, is that the DNA code is not arbitrary, and it does not rely at all on the agreement of sentient beings. In fact, it is exactly the same in nature as any other dynamic chemical process. When you see an explosion on TV, you’re watching a chemical reaction that was controlled by the same kind of “code.” Crystals grow based on such a code. Stars give off light and energy from the same kind of code.

All DNA is, to the chagrin of creationists, is a very, very complicated organic molecule that can react in a staggeringly large number of ways with other organic molecules. Unlike an explosion or a crystal, which can be described mathematically with a few simple formulas, the process of building a living thing is several orders of magnitude more complicated. It takes perhaps 10 billion bits to convey all the necessary information needed to build a human, and the process is never really finished until the human dies, so we’re talking about a very, very long process by comparison with an explosion, and billions more unique steps than the formation of a crystal.

Yet, it’s the same process. This molecule, when in the presence of that molecule, will bond and make this new molecule. It’s just chemistry.

So no, DNA is not a code. It is analogous to a code in enough ways that it makes sense for us to refer to things like the “genetic code,” but in the end, we’re just not talking about the kind of code that would make the theist argument valid.

Or 4. DNA is a code that evolved from simple building blocks in the absence of a superbeing, starting with the famous "primordial soup" about 3 billion years ago, helped along by the cosmic rays that Wyanjen mentioned.

I think some atheist's here worship science. It's really amazing to me how so many make assumptions and get defensive when someone suggest the possibility of intelligent design. It's funny that the hypocritical atheist's will call those that are religious limited thinkers when they themselves are limited to science. Religious fear to debate God and atheist's fear to debate science. I think science could be the religion of atheism.

That is because those same "reasons" apply to the star goat. And you didn't provide any arguments for me to argue against.

There are goats, therefore the world was vomited by a giant invisible star goat and it's purpose is to entertain the goats.

Debate please. Scientific, reasonable, mature debate only thank you. Or are you so enamored of the religion you cling to , the "there ain't no absolute therefore IT is all true," religion, that you are skeered to debate?

Prove the star goat does not exist and we can talk about your designer.

While people can point to dna as a code that must have been created by someone, I have no doubt in my mind that such things can happen of themselves....

Ultimately, there is no way of proving one way or another...for we as human beings lack true perspective, in my belief, to truly be able to contemplate their larger role in the cosmos...or lack of a role...

I am alive today, not only because DNA exists, but because two independent life forms, over time, came to work together...the mitochonrion and the host animal/plant cell......

Two life forms aiding one another....

I can't explain why it is....but, again, that does not mean that it was organized and planned by some "greater" consciousness...

I think it is interesting that you and I don't hold religious beliefs. I think it is shattering to most religious that repeatedly say that "you don't see atheist's in fox holes". I'm not saying that you are an atheist or I am an atheist, but I think most religious would consider anyone atheist that doesn't believe in a specific God or religion.

Atheist is defined as one who denies the existence of god/s.How can one deny the existence of that which cannot be defined, cannot be known, is incorporeal and exists as but an abstract concept in the minds of believers? I say there are no atheists, there are only "aconcepttheists."It's all bogus rigmarole anyway.:-)

Wyan:...nope! Only "monotheists" are "concepttheists."You are right tho, there are no "christians" either..They are taught from a book called the new testament. This jesus never spoke nor wrote a word in it. The NT was not even available to the public for almost 300 yrs after jesus was, alledgedly, awarded the punishment du jour for challenging Roman rule.They too, the hopeful "christians," are naught but "wannabees." :-)

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